


This Wasn't The Plan

by drtempledragon



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Autopsy, Bath, Candles, Gen, Pregnancy, Religion, Super Soldiers, X-Files Revisited Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:13:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24928234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drtempledragon/pseuds/drtempledragon
Summary: Written for The X-Files Revisited Challenge (2016), where canon diverged but convincingly. I offer than in Season 8, Mulder stays dead. Scully has to go on without her soulmate.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, John Doggett/Monica Reyes
Kudos: 8





	This Wasn't The Plan

This wasn’t Doggett’s plan.

His decision to join the FBI came from the desire to put more bad guys away in a mundane sense, and widen the resources to catch his son’s killer. The plan wasn’t to be sent to the basement to chase after a man who believed in aliens to protect the FBI’s reputation.

This wasn’t Mulder’s plan.

His search for proof of alien life and a government conspiracy to conceal that knowledge wasn’t meant to end in his death.

This wasn’t her plan.

When she had asked Mulder to father her child, the plan was for him to know what a happy family is. Instead, she’s in emotional pieces over his physical pieces in her autopsy bay. Mulder’s body reflects the physical and emotional torture of his life. Torture mostly by human hands, for not believing in him, and determined to undermine his beliefs for their own gain. She puts that in her autopsy notes. 

What life had given her was two children that she had desperately prayed for. She had outlived one of them within days of meeting her. The other one was still growing inside her and had already outlived its father. Maybe God was no different to the sarcastic genie Mulder once told her about, taking amusement in how He answered prayers. God sent Mulder an alien spaceship that ended his life with no proof. 

God had sent her a man that had outlived his own child, and who had stayed by her the way she had stayed by Mulder all those years, despite the heated arguments from different viewpoints. He loves her, she knows that. He has integrity, and an emotional stability that she forgot men could have after being consumed by Mulder’s passion. Maybe God had sent her Doggett to keep her emotions in a healthy range, before grief kills her and her unborn child the way it killed Mulder. She has something to live for.

It wouldn’t take a trained investigator long to figure out that Scully being the inheritor of Mulder’s sizeable estate (he himself had inherited both his parents’ wealth in recent years), that their relationship went beyond professional. Work is now for fun, not for income. She asks Skinner and Doggett to help her sort through Mulder’s things. Doggett is surprised. She tells him that she wants him to know the man he was sent to find outside of work. Doggett jokes that he thought Mulder only lived for work, and makes a comment about the size of his porn stash. She smiles, for the first time in a long time. Death brings a closure that endless searching does not. Scully learned that with Mulder and his sister. She’s now seeing it with Doggett and his son.

At night, in the weeks after Mulder’s funeral, she sees his ghostly form watching over her in bed. She cries silently and cradles her stomach. On the days she sees Mulder holding a baby, she admits herself into A&E to get checked out. The doctors are amazed at how early Scully detects problems with her pregnancy. She tells them she has a guardian angel. They give her a second glance, surprised that a trained medical doctor would believe in such things.

Doggett is naturally curious about his work partner’s wellbeing with her hospital admissions. She’s showing anyway; her untucked shirts no longer concealing the truth inside her. She has no reason to keep it as her and Mulder’s secret.

“Congratulations. How long have you known?”

“Since Mulder was abducted.”

Doggett’s reaction tells her everything he feels about her and his own son, “Do you think it’s an unnecessary risk to continue working on the X-Files?”

“It’s unnecessary for either of us to be in the basement, John. Get out while you still can.”

He stays. He says he wants to provide a rational explanation to these cases, then leave Scully to explain what he can’t. Scully thinks humility should be renamed in Doggett’s honour. But something is missing, and that’s a joy for the paranormal. The non-judgemental, childlike wonder for life beyond Western civilisation. Doggett says he knows who would think it her dream job, if Scully approves. He knows the circumstances of her meeting Monica Reyes was unfortunate, but she and Doggett had an equally bad start and now look at them.

She does look at them. With a baby on the way, both planned an unexpected, she needs strong role models in her child’s life. Her mother will be split numerous ways between her grandchildren and Godchildren. Her original hope was that Mulder would be a stay at home Dad so she could continue working, ever hopeful on finding a vaccine for the virus she was infected with. Her choice to create a child was with the background knowledge that aliens were due to colonise the earth any day now. She wouldn’t teach her child perpetual uncertainty. If she could teach Mulder to live in the present and overcome past grief, she could pass that skill on to their child.

Monica is a light breeze through the stagnant basement air. She makes whale song noises, makes jokes that make John smile, flirts with both of them, and is quitting smoking so she doesn’t harm the baby. If only John’s old military buddies felt the same. 

Knowle Rohrer and Shannon McMahon make overtures at Doggett that they want access to Scully’s baby. He tells them in no uncertain terms that if Scully or her child is harmed, he’ll kill them. They both show him ridged spinal growths and say they are latter stages of a military experiment that all of Bravo Company were subjected to, and now abductees are being targeted to have these Super Soldiers born rather than hybridised. Doggett tells them they are a few slices short of a loaf. But when he wakes up in the morning, he rubs his neck to feel the definition of his vertebrae.

Talking with Reyes is fascinating for Scully. She’s read all the religions that have been translated into English and Spanish, and is highlighting the major themes in all of them. Mulder’s view on organised religion was dismissive, even though he had studied the texts. Reyes finds what people thought just as interesting as what nature creates. She’s never wanted children herself, and doesn’t think marriage is necessary, but she knows John would make an excellent father again. Scully learns that Reyes met Doggett in worse circumstances than she met her with Mulder’s body being returned. She sees the pattern: Not letting people in because you’ve met due to losing a loved one. Getting the person you need, even if it takes a while to realise.

Mulder still comes to her at night. Souls mate eternal, and he’s not going on to another life without her. All he’s doing is putting her off masturbating. Not that she can reach with her belly in the way. She wonders if she’ll ever embark on a romantic relationship with Mulder watching. Reyes would probably get a kick out of it. Doggett seems to need written permission to do anything beyond epic hugs with her (concern is for your wellbeing, Dana. It’s all it’s ever for). She attributes her thoughts to her hormones, and that she is already intimately attached to someone inside her and has been for eight months.

John’s been keeping secrets from her. Reyes isn’t one to break a confidence, but she’s concerned for his wellbeing. John has spoken about the visits from his old military buddies, about the threat that there was something in the water turning him into an unthinking machine because he had been experimented on during his service. She’s still used to Mulder telling her everything immediately, that she has to readjust to her partners keeping to themselves the way she does. A medical exam reveals multiple metal growths on his spine, possibly a chemical attraction taking heavy metals from water and depositing them around his nervous system. John jokes that he’d better stay away from airport security; otherwise he’ll get ripped apart with the new body scanners. 

Reyes and Doggett enjoy the long drives across America to crime scenes. Among the many conversations where he admits he hasn’t got a clue how her mind works but he loves her all the same, he confesses that if anything about what Knowle Rohrer said is true, he wants to die as John Jay Doggett and not live as a mindless soldier doing someone’s bidding.

Scully’s social life has dramatically increased since… she hasn’t been following Mulder everywhere. It’s been handy having him in her bedroom. She knows where he is. She knows he’s at peace. In the daytime hours, her apartment is awash with baby shower gifts, a clan of redheads from her extended family, her mother loving every minute of being a social mediator and an expectant grandmother again.

Skinner, Doggett and Reyes stay in the kitchen area propping up the coffee machine. They offer her a reality check, of passing from working full time in the basement of the FBI to full time motherhood. But she’s not looking back over the sofa. She’s facing the gender binary conspiracy that is pink and blue. Scully’s painting a rainbow in the nursery, with star constellations passing overhead; the beauty nature offers, transient in its passing. Reyes has brought gemstones and natural crystal clusters; some rare specimens she felt were right for this child. She reminds Scully of the sister she lost to Mulder’s quest. She’s reminded of the Native American belief that for something to come into the world, something must leave. She cradles her belly instinctively and thinks of the timing of her pregnancy to Mulder’s disappearance.

The birth doesn’t go as planned. She’s in the bath surrounded by candles. Reyes and her mother have trained to be her birth partners. Skinner and Doggett stand outside her apartment door. John’s old military buddies show up, as does Alex Krycek. Skinner is on the floor in agony from the nanobots controlled by Krycek. Doggett is being manipulated by the smart metal inside him, which is moving into his spinal cord and threatening to control him. Reyes is on the scene, gun pointed at the Super Soldiers. She empties her clip; one kill shot to Krycek’s forehead, four bullets to Rohrer and McMahon. No effect. Skinner recovers and pushes Doggett into the apartment, closing the door. Skinner empties his clip into the approaching soldiers. Some effect. Even they seem surprised that their wounds are still bleeding. Reyes opens the door again, and presents a reddish rock that she brought for the baby. Metal is drawn to their skin closest to the rock, and then they collapse from fatal injuries. Skinner phones the police.

No-one was keeping an eye on Doggett. He heads towards the bathroom. Scully is at first relieved to see him after hearing numerous gunshots and commotion, and then realises his eyes are glazed over. The metal has taken him. He’s coming for her baby. Her mother instinctively stands between this threat and her descendants. Scully wonders if she’ll ever have a bath in peace.

Reyes appears in the door holding the rock. She hesitates about coming closer with it, knowing it will save him as a person but kill his body. John turns to her to assess her threat status. She puts the rock down outside the bathroom and enters. 

“John,” she implores. “This isn’t you.” She stands intimately to him. “You’re my friend. You love children.” She places a hand on his face; his stubble sharp. She caresses it. “John, do you remember when Luke died?” He twitches. “You told me no-one should have their children taken from them. Do you want Dana to suffer, John?” She puts her other hand on his face, and slides her fingers around to caress his neck. His eyes flutter. Tears form in hers. “John, I’m lost without you. Come back to me. Please.” His eyes come to life. He wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her neck. She hears him whisper thank you.

In the background, nature has delivered a healthy baby. Everyone is crying relief. Doggett quickly leaves, giving the rock a wide berth. Skinner is in the entranceway holding the nanobot controller, waiting for the police to arrive. Doggett phones for an ambulance to get the new arrival checked out. 

Liam “Jay Rey” Scully has a mean punch, but normal metal levels. John loves to hold him, but only when Monica is there. They make excellent baby sitters, and people often mistake them as new parents when they take Liam out in the stroller while Scully teaches at Quantico.

The basement is in safe hands with Monica and John. Recently, they had a case involving a petrol rig taken over by Black Oil. Two of the workers displayed natural immunity and originated near Monica’s birthplace in Mexico, and it’s the break Scully had been looking for to develop a cure. Monica has cross-referenced many religious texts, and if she was going to pick a date for colonisation, it would be December 22nd 2012. Liam will be eleven, and Uncle John, Uncle Skinner and Auntie Reyes make sure the kid can do anything he sets his mind to.

That’s the plan.


End file.
